Whether you’re planting only one shrub or fifty annuals, it’s important to prepare the soil. This is true even if you’re planting in an existing flower bed. Prepare new flower beds well. In existing flower beds, work a few spadefuls of soil ammendment, such as compost, into the area you’ll be planting. Especially if planting annuals, work a slow-release fertilizer into the ground. Annuals are hungry, fast-growing plants that thrive when given plenty of nutrients.

Before planting, make sure your plants are well-watered and not wilting. If they are looking droopy, water them in their existing pots and wait a day for them to recover. If a plant is a bare-root, soak the roots in cool water for several hours before planting.

To plant, remove the plant gently from its pot. If the roots are wrapped in circles or are thickly knotted, loosen them with your fingers. If the roots are very large and tough, you may even need to slice through them slightly with a space to loosen them.

Position the plant so the soil level is the same as it was in the pot. If the plant is bare-root, plant it at the depth specified in the package.

Difficult as it may sedem, pinch or trim off any flowers. They’re taking energy that would be better put into establishing the plant’s root system for bigger, better and more flowers later on. You’ll lose a few pretty blooms initially, but you’ll be rewarded with a healthier, longer-blooming plant.

Water the plant well. If it’s a shrub or a rose, position a hose at the base just barely at a trickle and let it run for half an hour or more. For annuals and perinneals, water so the soil is soaked a foot down.

Keep the plants well watered for the first two weeks, checking them daily for soil moisture and signs of wilting. Once they’re established, they’ll need less water.

Hot Tips!

Get those roots going! When planting, it’s a good idea to add something that will get the roots off to a FAST start. Well-developed root systems make for healthier plants that are better at taking up water and critical nutrients. A so-called starter fertilizer is heavy on phosophorus, which encourages growth. Another way to get roots going is to use a root stimulator. Root stimulators contain hormones that encourage rapid root growth.

Happy planting!

Thought we would join in the Thursday Thirteen fun this week. Instead of 13 things about Me – I have created The Garden 13 with 13 interesting gardening tips and tricks I’ve come across over the past week.

To start off our first Garden 13 – we have information on cutting flowers from your garden. Nearly any flower, twig, berry or leaf can be brough indoors and put in a vase. If you have the space, you can indulge in a cutting garden just for flowers from your regular beds and borders. In fact, cutting them makes your garden prettier, because it encourages flower production. Another way to grow flowers for cutting is to plant them in rows in your vegetable garden. This is especially practical with fast-growing annuals planted from seed, such as zinnias and cosmos.

Here are thirteen great flowers for cutting:

1. Aster
2. Baby’s breath
3. Black Eyed Susan
4. Dahlia
5. Gerbera Daisy
6. Iris, all types
7. Lavender
8. Lily-of-the-Valley
9. Peony
10. Roses
11. Shasta Daisy
12. Snapdragon
13. Sweet Pea

Arbors are old fashioned favorites that have become popular once again. I love them and use them throughout my garden to create some lovely borders and shade with some very gorgeous climbing flowers and vines.

An arbor can be large, with a grid overhead and enough space for a sitting area. Sometimes arbors are long and narrow, designed to follow a path. And sometimes they are only wide enough to accommmodate a bench or porch swing or other modest seating.

The most common type of arbor looks like a little doorway. And that’s exactly what it is, and attractive entry to a place at the beginning or end of a path or even to straddle a path somewhere along its middle.

Avoid the common mistake of plunking one of these doorwaylike arbors in the middle of the garden – - that’s like putting a door in the middle of a room!

Arbor Materials
Arbors are made of a variety of materials: wood timbers, lumber, metal and vinyl. Wood is a favorite, and an excellent material, but it presents a maintenance problem because an arbor, with its intricate design, can be hard to paint.

Many gardeners leave the wood unpainted, perhaps treating new wood with a deck sealer. Others add a traditional coat of paint, or use a stain to give the wood color while preventing the peeling problems that occur with paint.

Erecting an Arbor
large arbors can be securely mounted in concrete to prevent settling. Small arbors can benefit from being seated on concrete pilings, too, though teh cnocreate can contribute to rot problems with wood structures.

Kits are available that secure the arbor to the ground with chains and ground screws. One of the easiets ways to secure a wood arbor so it doesn’t settle or blow over is to screw two sturdy flat steel strips or stakes a couple of feed long onto each of the four corner legs and insert teh stakes securely into the soil.

Popular vines for arbors and trellises:
Black eyed Susan
Chocolate vine
Clematis
Jessamine
Morning Glory
Moonflower
Passion flower
Climbing roses
Jasmine, star
Sweetpea
Trumpet honeysuckle

Aren’t they lovely? I think Hydrangeas are my most favorite flower of the season! I have mine growing in a container – - a large whiskey barrel that gives it plenty of room to grow.
Hydrangeas need an abundance of water (hydrangea means water tub in Greek), partial to full sun,and very rich soil. The spent flowers of Hydrangeas should be removed as soon as possible to allow the plant to direct it’s strength to growing and producing new buds rather than seeds. If you didn’t add compost to your hole when planting the Hydrangeas, you might consider replanting, because they thrive in rich soil. Fertilize liberally in the spring using a good all purpose plant food.

Hydrangeas only flower on on the tips of new growth, so you can remove any stems which have already bloomed.

Little Hydrangea Facts:

• (Natures little pH tester)… In acid soil the blooms will be blue, pink flowers in alkaline soil, and white in neutral. The flower colors may be controlled by adding aluminum sulfate to the soil prior to budding to produce or keep blue flowers; or by liming or adding quantities of superphosphate to the soil to produce the pink ones.
• Hydrangeas that freeze back to the ground may never bloom, so you might have to cut them back to the ground and provide a heavy mulch to the roots prior to any hard freezes if you want to stand a chance of flowers at all. (This is not an option with H. macrophylla).
• Hydrangeas are propagated by softwood cuttings taken in June. Strip the lower half of the leaves from a 6-8 inch healthy cutting. (Using a sharp clean knife!) Dip about 3/4 inch of the cut end into a rooting hormone such as Roottone® or Hormonex®, and insert the cutting about one inch deep into sterile moist sand, vermiculite or sphagnum moss. Create a mini-greenhouse over the container with poly film over a wire frame and place it in a bright spot (NOT full sun) until the roots form. After rooting the cutting, it should be planted in a mix of loam and peat moss. Hydrangea cuttings may also root when placed in a glass of water.
• Clusters of larger flowers will be produced if the plant is thinned down to half of the original number of stems. Alternatively, pinching out the tips of the new growth (prior to budding), will produce many more flowers but the clusters will be smaller.
• Pee Gee Hydrangeas may grow to 25 feet tall, while the more common varieties will usually only attain 6 feet.

Perhaps the only downside to these lush plants with their colorful blooms, is that they shed their leaves the fall. The leafless bush becomes a less than attractive clump of stalks and stems until the following spring.

To change flower colors: Add lime of the soil to reduce acidity. Add Aluminum sulfate to increase acidity.